Flyers need to look within to move on

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Magazine

Six days have passed since the Flyers' season ended in Boston, long enough to wade through the daily reactionary columns and pseudo-issues and get to the heart of what the club needs to do to move forward.

At the top of the list of fine whines from this hockey-mad city is goaltending.

It's clear that Sergei Bobrovsky needs at least another year to mature and develop, but Michael Leighton's back and hip issues, after multiple surgeries, is a concern -- as is his alarming inconsistency. Brian Boucher's sand has pretty much run to the bottom of the hourglass, so farewell Boosh, thank you for time served.

So what to do? There are free agents available, and the crow cries/sheep bleats during the season revolved around Florida's Tomas Vokoun. They have extended now to Ilya Bryzgalov, late of the apparently-still-alive Phoenix Coyotes. No matter what the Flyers front office actually does, it definitely can't low-ball whoever they go after.

There's no crying "salary-cap crunch" if they're serious.

It cost them Martin Biron (who was basically on the clock after saying before the '09 season ended that he was going to test free agency), who I think many around here would have back in a second. It cost them a serious run at Evgeni Nabokov, and it even cost them Marty Turco -- who ended up riding the pine in favor of rookie Corey Crawford in Chicago anyway -- but that doesn't really prove the Flyers were right in not offering a slight bump in salary.

What about Ray Emery? Didn't he prove himself healthy and able once again after signing with Anaheim in February? Are Holmgren, Luukko and the like going to act gun-shy over the potential for another career-threatening injury? Even Jean-Sebastien Giguere is a dark-horse candidate, a veteran with playoff experience who can come cheap.

Broad Street Hockey is right to ask the question: How much better would the Flyers be better off with a "big name" goaltender?

And I am right to answer: their chances are markedly better with than without. After all, only one "no-name" goaltender in recent memory has won a Stanley Cup -- then-rookie Antti Niemi with the Blackhawks last year.

The simple fact is, there are no more world-beating goalies in this generation. Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Ed Belfour, Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood ain't walking through the door, folks. But this supposed inferior echelon has managed to yield encouraging results.

Of the final four in the NHL, Boston's Tim Thomas is a Vezina Trophy winner in 2009 and finalist this year; Dwayne Roloson in Tampa might have finally shed his journeyman tag with a ridiculous record in elimination games; Roberto Luongo has not yet shrugged with the weight of Vancouver's Cup hopes on his shoulders, and should San Jose win, Niemi is right back in the fold.

Given this, it's patently ridiculous if the Flyers manage to stick with Leighton and Bobrovsky and roll the dice for one more season. After all, everybody knows the minor-league system is in such a fallow period that bringing up Johan Backlund permanently would be tempting fate on an unprecedented level for this franchise.

The Flyers did it once, in the Lost Season of 1982-83 with Bob Froese and Pelle Lindbergh, but the whole team collapsed and got swept in three games by the Rangers in the first round despite winning 49 games and taking the Patrick Division.

Next on the list is leadership.

I don't understand the recent fetish of naming young players, with only a glimpse of potential, to high positions like the captaincy. The Flyers are not alone in this. I also have a hard time understanding the idea that young stars have to be locked up for the extreme long-term when the salary cap fluctuates every season.

Mike Richards is basically stuck as a Flyer for life due to the length and price of his contract extension. We get that the deep-rooted biases of those in charge will basically only permit players of North American descent as leaders, or worthy enough to wear the "C," but I still have no idea why Richards was given the mantle so quickly.

Setting aside the flame wars between some mainstream media and the players that cropped up earlier in the week, it has been clear to me that Richards lacks a key ingredient, which the French call a certain je ne sais quoi, to ably carry off the duties of a captain. I have no idea if it's the difference between growing up in Kenora, Ontario and living as an adult in Philadelphia, or if it's due to his age, or his inability to be comfortable with the machinations of big-market American media, but it's not there.

If reports are true that Richards is somehow unhappy, it is imperative for the Flyers to put him in a situation where he will not feel stunted or disillusioned or unable to bring what he does to team chemistry. If that means taking away the captaincy and giving it to someone else  like a veteran defenseman  then so be it. But they must act before the start of training camp.

Even the great Bobby Clarke didn't see an uninterrupted run as El Capitan during his career. He had to hand it off to Mel Bridgman and Bill Barber from 1979-82 before getting it back in his last two seasons. The Flyers really put Richards behind the 8-ball when then-captain Jason Smith was not signed and left via free agency. Simon Gagne reportedly passed up the chance -- and wisely so -- but Richards really shouldn't have been the default, and certainly not at age 23.

How well did it really work out for Eric Lindros, who was 21 when he got the Scarlet Letter, 22 when he first wore it in game action, and 27 when it was ripped away from him on national television?

There are some who feel that Chris Pronger should have been the man all along, and though you can present an argument against that, it's a flimsy one when you see what Pronger's presence means to the team on the ice and how he handles the increasingly irritable media here. If nothing else, to avoid endless speculation in the papers and online about a power imbalance, it should be someone else other than Richards, with the publicly-spoken expectation that he can regain the honor when he feels he's ready.

Finally, the issue of the coaching staff.

There's an outcry for Joe Mullen's (bald) head on a silver platter for the Flyers' power-play woes this season. But that misses the point. Why is a former 50-goal scorer, and 500-goal scorer, sitting way up in the press area?

I question any team that decides to hire an ex-pugilist to serve as an assistant down at ice level. Can you name any NHL team to win a title with one of those players responsible for a huge chunk of game-planning? I also question the Flyers in particular, for bringing back the umpteenth role player/good soldier as if that qualifies them to take on a serious role in the organization. Having former draft pick and mediocre former NHL defenseman Kevin McCarthy on the staff is enough.

That said, there's no reason for Craig Berube to be an assistant in Philadelphia. There's no reason to bring anyone else into that vacancy except for an experienced ex-head-coach, in the mold of a Terry Murray. It was Murray's calming influence which helped John Stevens right the ship in 2008, and since his departure for the head job in LA, there's been a deficiency aside Peter Laviolette.

Ken Hitchcock fits the bill. So does Marc Crawford. And if the Flyers are still married to keeping coaching jobs within the family, so does...wait for it...John Stevens.

Of course, none of this can occur if Holmgren and the remaining powers-that-be, including cranky old Grandpa Snider, all come to some sort of consensus and realize that at the very least, these three issues must be dealt with up front and as soon as possible.

The moving of personages via trade is something that can only be addressed once the main framework is altered. That, in and of itself, is a whole other post where I can detail the follies of the salary-cap troubles that have rippled outward from four years ago.

In any case, the ugliness of a four-game sweep is a blessing in that it can reveal problems that cannot be explained away by lamenting the breaks. Let's hope the organization doesn't turn a blind eye to the issues and can formulate better short-and-long-term plans than what a craps player uses in Atlantic City.

If not, then we're in for yet another series of unpredictable waves and troughs each year between the regular season and playoffs.